


Fading Like A Flower

by Sevargs



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Character Death, Dragon Ball Death Hacking, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Goku Learning What Consequences are, Hallucinations, Isolation, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Needles, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strangling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevargs/pseuds/Sevargs
Summary: It could possibly be the worst idea he’d ever devised, and yet, the only one that could buy them time to find a cure. He just couldn’t have prepared himself for the trauma that killing Vegeta with his own two hands might cause him.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta, Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77





	1. Things Will Never Be The Same

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has some strong themes and may be upsetting to some, please exercise caution and step away if you’re uncomfortable.

A numb body slumped against the cool bricks of a dimly lit hallway wall. The hollow echoes of his breath sounded as haunted as he felt and almost matched the faint prickling sensations in the tips of his fingers—the only thing he could feel, when the rest of him felt empty. His legs curled under him and his shoulders trembled. For all the powerful muscles in his large form, he felt weak. Thick arms and heavy shoulders stretched and he stared down at his hands. He stared until the hallway felt longer and wider than it was; an emptier and lonelier place than anything he’d ever experienced before in his life. The tremors shook him down into his core until he wasn’t seeing his hands anymore. 

He was seeing past them. Past the hallway. Past the split second decision he made that left him feeling displaced from his body for what he had chosen. His ears were ringing with her voice in his head and he was frozen, but wanting to block her out. She was right to have that reaction, but he wanted her to see his logic. He had a plan...it was just an utterly horrific one, possibly the worst one he’d ever had in all his life, but it was one...possibly the only one. It would work. Bulma would have to understand. She would, when she was done being horrified and trying to fix it. It wouldn’t be long; there wasn’t much she could do to fix this. 

He made sure of it. 

The distressed screaming coming from her, twisted his gut in ways he never wanted to hear from her again; and he was the one who caused it. But he had no choice. Time was running out and waiting any longer meant they may lose their chance forever. He just couldn’t let that happen. 

The beeping and crashing from the other room didn’t stop for who knew how long. He just listened. He didn’t lift his head or try to stop her. Her swearing and sobbing filtered into the empty hall. Echoes carried along the walls and he felt them in his chest, tightening until his breath was shallow and blood felt thick in his veins. She’d do everything she could and burn herself out, explosively. Anything in the way was cast aside, tossed across the room and broken. Every shattering sound of glass made his skin crawl. Something heavy hit the top of the glass table in the room and then dead silence followed. She finally stopped. 

When nothing followed and the emptiness came after, he realized that maybe he preferred the screaming and the anger. The hollow hall, just outside the door, felt like a dimension so far removed from the one he was supposed to be in, that he felt like he was in hell. Hell, actually, might have been less hellish than what he experienced at that moment. The aftermath of his actions hadn’t fully caught up with him, as seldom they did so quickly, but he started to feel like he was going to face a much harder backlash from this than he ever actually expected.

The idea itself was so simple, that it was inarguable. It meant to be very easy and solve the problem with the highest chance for the best outcome—and that was honestly quite a lot of tactical thinking on his behalf. But in action...In action it was much different than he expected. He had not been prepared at all, for what actually acting on it would entail. Doing it meant, ultimately, everything would be just fine; but doing it meant that he had to commit himself to a task that he really believed he could do—with the mindset of it being a necessity. He had to do it, therefore, everything would be fine. 

He had to do it, therefore Bulma would forgive him eventually. 

He had to do it, which meant the trust he’d spent so long earning from Vegeta, unfortunately, would be a necessary loss. 

Hands closed into fists and he repeated it to himself, silently. Over and over. It was the right choice. Maybe not the right way to do it. Seldom was anything he did the right way to do it. Often times, he was guilty of being far too spontaneous and picking the worst methods; but they didn’t have time—and somehow he knew they would try to talk him out of it. Bulma would. She would convince him she was so close to finding the answer, but she wasn’t close enough. Not close enough to ensure the positive outcome. He wasn’t a genius, but even he could see how bad it was beginning to look. 

The dark circles under her eyes were beginning to show her desperation and she couldn’t keep going at the pace she maintained. Any longer and she would make more mistakes than she’d make progress...This way, he bought her some time. Now she’d have plenty of time. She could look for an answer. She just didn’t see that yet. 

No. What she saw...What she had come in to see in that sterile room, was her long time friend leaning over her husband’s body. The doorway had been to his back and she hadn’t been able to see him soon enough to know why he leaned over Vegeta. She’d have never been able to glance in the window and make sense of what he was doing, only the sudden flashing of monitors gave that away; but by the time she charged into the room, he already finished his task. His large hands around Vegeta’s neck had been there far longer than anything Bulma could have intervened. She didn’t even know he’d been there at all, yet.

He visited every day. Not every day did he come over and kill her husband, however. The numb sensation it left in his body only seemed to get worse. The only thing he could feel was the prickling burning in his fingertips. No amount of flexing his fingers could lessen the agony of that sensation. It felt like what he thought betrayal should feel like, even if he knew his intention was good. 

A soft click of a door felt like a star exploding in the quiet hall and he turned his head up. The passage of time was completely lost on him and he didn’t try to guess just how long Bulma had stayed in there to try and bring Vegeta back from what he’d just done. He held him down for a very long time, nothing Bulma did could change the outcome of the decision he made when he walked into that room. 

She knew that when she locked eyes with him. 

In all of his life, a punch to the face had never struck him so hard. This wasn’t a slap, like Bulma was known to do, this was a full-on knuckles to the cheek, sock to the face. And he deserved it. Physically, any other enemy in his life could hurt him more than this one woman’s noodle arms could; but the emotional implications of her strike, went straight through him and destroyed him more than any other opponent in the past, present and future ever would. 

“Goku—Goku—What— What have you done?! What the hell have you done—” Her voice trembled along with the thin frame of her body. “Why—”

He offered no apologies, because he couldn’t regret his decision, but his voice lowered in his shared grief, “if he died a natural death...Bulma, then we couldn’t do anything for him…this way, you have time. You can figure out what’s wrong... Then we can bring him back...And cure him, right?”

“Goku…” The crackle in her voice dissolved the usual confidence in her voice and the beautiful youth of her face broke by smeared wet lines and the threat of sobs hovering in her chest. Exhaustion took over her so intensely, that he expected her to succumb to it at any moment; but she didn’t. The fist that hit him, reached out in an open palm and cupped his cheek, drawing him to her. 

That was far worse than being hit. No sensation in the universe, this or the next, felt worse than the way she then pulled him toward her and embraced him. Everything collapsed. Everything fell apart. He’d rather she scream at him. He’d prefer she hit him until he couldn’t move. That would be easier to combat, than her gentleness. Her gentleness made the tightening in his chest unbearable and he couldn’t breathe. If she chose anger, then he could hold himself together a little better. 

And not think about looking down at Vegeta and watching him die under his own hands. For his own good. If Vegeta never got sick, this never would have happened...but he did. This was the best he could do. It was his best answer. It was the best Goku answer. He couldn’t save him in a heroic way. He wasn’t a hero. He was just doing what might give Vegeta back to him. Them. Give Vegeta back to them. 

Losing him wasn’t an option. 

I can’t have you die yet, what will I do without you? 

He’d stared down at him, watching eyes that recognized exactly what Goku’s hands meant and he wondered if Vegeta knew. He never spoke a word to him. Goku never said a thing. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t he tell him that he was going to bring him back? That was the plan, so why not reassure him? Vegeta had trust issues already and he didn’t even attempt to comfort him. He said nothing. I’m killing you, because I care. I’m killing you because you are important enough to me that I’m willing to be the one to murder you to buy you time. 

His hands burned and his nails dug into his fists enough to break skin. Bulma wrapped her arms around him. Had Bulma considered this to be an option, but couldn’t bring herself to do it? He couldn’t ask her. The solution seemed simple enough when he stood over Vegeta. But he started to understand, he wasn’t in his right mind at all. 

Weeks and weeks of watching Vegeta deteriorate had left more than just Bulma unnerved. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around her, hiding against her. The origin of the tremble between them was hard to determine. Was it her or his? Her sleepless body, from months of tirelessly trying to find answers, fruitlessly, or his for rash decisions that he didn’t mentally prepare for. “I’m sorry, Bulma…” 

“Goku… Goku, I don’t know what to do, I’ve tried everything…” She turned her face into the side of his, keeping him close. 

“There’s gotta be something else you can do, Bulma, you’re super smart.” 

“It’s...not like there are hundreds of you, Goku...There’s, two of you. Two. And you were raised here on Earth, exposed to everything Vegeta was not. I still can’t isolate the difference between you. He didn’t respond to anything I did. Nothing I cultured, responded. No treatments helped even slightly, what am I supposed to do—” 

“You have more time—please—please…Bulma do something...Something, anything. What can I do to help? We have less than a year until we can bring him back...He didn’t die naturally, he’ll come back. It’ll work, you just have to fix the sick part. I made sure of it. I made absolute sure of it,” he nodded at her, feeling far away and empty, but he was so certain of it. It absolutely would work. She just had to work on her part. He couldn’t do that. If she couldn’t do that, then he’d just killed him for no reason. “Please Bulma…” 

She seemed to connect with that, his pleading and the desperate edge to his voice. The uneasiness he was left with was his to deal with, and he would accept the consequences as long as it worked. Vegeta could hate him for all of eternity, but as long as he lived enough to do it, that would be fine. He would deserve it after he looked him in the eyes and forced him to stop breathing. 

Once, he’d asked Vegeta if he trusted him, then he turned around and took that trust into his hands and choked the life right out of it. He couldn’t tell him, because then he'd have to explain himself and he wasn’t sure he understood enough to explain it. It was just a matter of needing him to be there and if it came down to it, he would just have to kill him to ensure his survival. If only it didn’t feel as horrible as it did. If only the act felt more temporary and killing Vegeta didn’t feel like he’d destroyed some seriously monumental aspect of himself in the process. 

Bulma’s embrace helped bring him back to Earth, but he was not as well adjusted as he’d hoped he’d be. It was temporary, he’d said to himself.

But nothing felt temporary about the body twitching under his straining fingers, or watching the recognition fade out of eyes, eyes that always seemed lit with fire toward him. The moment Vegeta was gone, felt like his own death for a moment and he recalled holding his breath the entire time and feeling the pain of his burning lungs. 

I am so sorry. I would completely understand if you hate me. 

Vegeta hadn’t had even enough in him to put up a real fight. It had taken effort not to break his neck and something about that fact alone shook him deeply. That moment that he’d leaned over and decided to act on his impulse became a point of no return. Impulse thought it would have been much quicker than that...he never thought it would feel like such an agonizingly slow, torturous few minutes. He knew the moment he put his hands down, he couldn’t let go until he was absolutely sure it was over. Because he wouldn’t be able to do it twice. 

He wasn’t sure how he was able to even do it once, looking back.

Fighting with his life on the line was a completely different matter. If Vegeta popped up and challenged him to fight to the death, then he could accept that much more easily, because he’d know he’d have to earn that. He wouldn’t just walk away without having to wrench that victory out of Vegeta’s cold dead fingers, with battle scars and blood to show. He was nothing short of viciously persistent and Goku respected that fiercely. No one could take a beating like Vegeta and pop back up and say, what that’s all? 

But he wasn’t going to pop back up so easily this time and it was wrong. Wrong because he made it that way and wrong because Vegeta had no say in it. He didn’t have the option to offer up a fight and Goku didn’t give him the benefit of choosing which way left him with more dignity. His input wasn’t needed. Ultimately, Vegeta’s opinion was ignored before ever being considered...he may have even agreed to it, if Goku had asked, but he didn’t have it in him to stop long enough to ask. Pausing his moment of bravery, to complete such a task, just to ask permission to do it would have destroyed his nerve. 

“Goku…” Bulma’s voice in his ear pulled him from his thoughts and remembered where he was. He felt so far away from the empty hall, where all the walls felt like they were worlds away, yet closed in on him so tightly. He could barely breathe and his body didn’t want to move. Her arms still trembled, wrapped around his neck and holding him to her. Instinctively, he knew she was angry with him, but logically, she knew he was right. That was why her weak, quivering arms held him so tightly. She leaned on him, anchoring herself to him and he tried to support her with arms he could barely feel—hands burning. 

Time stopped for the moments sitting there in the hall with her, waiting for her to say anything else. His ideas had stopped there, he depended on her to know what to do after that and it twisted a guilty sensation in his gut. She had already done so much and worked so hard and all he had to offer was giving her more time to do more of that. Bulma was so amazing and he couldn’t do more for her. 

When Bulma first told him that Vegeta was sick, he never thought it would get to that point. He thought he would be fine, Bulma would fix it. He’d be just fine in no time and be back to sparring with him like always. But he wasn’t just fine. He tried to keep up with Goku for as long as his stubbornness would allow him, but Goku realized that Vegeta couldn’t block him at all. His senses dulled. The facade came to a harsh close when he failed to parry a strike and Goku stumbled, catching himself sharply before he seriously hurt him. The damage to Vegeta’s pride would have been the hardest hit, if Vegeta had been well enough to be angry about it. 

That had been the hardest part of watching it all. The sheer lack of resistance. The subtle way it seeped out of him. Goku visited him daily, to try and keep him at least batting at something, even if only with words; but the hours of the day he remained conscious started to get shorter and shorter. Still, he showed up. Still, he believed Bulma could fix it. Vegeta wasn’t going to lose to some Earth disease… Bulma explained it to him, but he could never remember exactly what it was; just that he had immunity to it, because he was raised there. Vegeta could beat that if he could… right? Of course he could. Vegeta always caught up. 

But he didn’t. 

She had moved him to that room. Sterile looking and cold. He could sleep there in peace and quiet, as much as he wanted and try to recover—but he never got better, just stayed the same, no matter what she did or what she gave him. Goku still visited him. Daily. Some days, Vegeta greeted him with some remark. Some days, Vegeta opened his eyes and acknowledged that he knew he was there. Some days, he didn’t bother to wake up at all. Those were the days that had brought a little fear that he’d already been so close to dying, that he’d beaten them to it. That was what Goku came into that morning. 

The still way he had been sleeping was what prompted him to wake Vegeta up and make sure he was still alive. Vegeta opened his eyes, but the distance in them was frightening. How much more, before he wouldn’t wake back up? 

He no longer had to gamble with the odds. He took those matters into his own hands… 

“Goku…” Her voice cut into him again and this time, it held him. Gentle fingers pulled his eyes to her and she managed to get his focus where it needed to be, on her—away from his thoughts. The escape was a welcome one and he clung to it, watching her face as if she was the most important thing to his very existence at the moment. She brushed the hair out of his face with her fingers gently, her voice soothing but firm, “Goku, I need to move him. I need you to help me. If we’re going to wish him back, then I need to keep his body cared for… But I need samples to work with. I need to do it now… I…” Her voice caught in her throat and her fingers pulled his hair a bit, “I need to do it while he’s still...warm.” 

“I’m….sorry Bulma...I didn’t think this through...I should have…talked to you first but I...” 

“No...No...I…” She shook her head, pressing her forehead to his. Even in the dim light of the hall, he could see the glistening off her cheek; remnants of the tears on her face—and more fresh ones threatening to spill as she stammered more syllables. “I thought about it. But...I...couldn’t.” 

“You can fix it...Bulma...He’ll be mad at me, but he’ll get over it. He’s gotten over stuff I’ve done before...I mean, this one’s bigger than most...but...He wouldn’t want to lose to this if there was a way to fix it. It’s...not really a way yet, but we’ll find it...”

“...I hope you’re right, Goku. I’m not a full on medical doctor. I only have you and Vegeta as my Saiyan guinea pigs and now, really only you are my healthy test subject. You know that means I’m going to have to use you.” 

“Anything you want, I’ll do it.” 

“I mean, everything. That means needles, Goku. Big needles. I’ll need blood, bone marrow, maybe even cerebrospinal fluid. Anything I can get my hands on that I don’t have that I can test against what I have on him. Anything. I have to test everything. I have a year. This stuff...This stuff can take most scientists decades.” 

The very thought of it made his skin crawl and he held his breath, but he knew he’d have no choice. He knew from the moment Bulma said that only the two of them were what she had to work from. The fight she had with him once to get his blood had been a challenge enough, but he’d have to give more and for Vegeta’s sake, he’d have to let her. Try to let her. The instinct to recoil and pull away was strong enough that he worried he’d hurt her if he reacted too strongly. 

“I said anything you want, Bulma,” he nodded again, and he drew himself up as best he could on numb, wobbly legs. “Where do you want to take him?” He spared a glance from her, back toward the room. Thinking about time wasn’t an option for him at the moment. The risk of still failing was more than he could handle and he forced it out, leaving behind the searing handprint of his impulse in a memory for the time being. 

“I’m going to have to put him in a cold room...But I need samples from him first….I’ll...have to freeze him to keep his body intact until we bring him back… I…”

“I can do it for you—” 

“No,” her soft hair shook over her eyes, in her protest. The whole conversation was disturbing, no matter how clinical she tried to sound about it, no matter how scientific she tried to be with him. Goku could tell that Bulma wasn’t so unaffected to be able to shut off her feelings to keep going without it making cracks in her exterior. She’d explosively retaliated against his actions, after all, even as she immediately knew he wasn’t wrong. Even as she settled down from it, within seconds of his explanation. She wanted to be furious, to be justifiably anguished, but she was in a place where she knew his acting out was in the best interest. 

“Let me help,” he tried again, but she gently patted his cheek, standing and leaning against him briefly. 

“You won’t know how to collect what I need...Just...Lift what I need you to lift...And hold what I need you to hold and we’ll make this quick, we’re losing our window…” She shook herself, trying to steel herself, slapping her hands against her own cheeks to get herself prepared as best as she could. She’d already been in the room, she already knew what she was going back into. 

He didn’t, after leaving Bulma with him. 

He wasn’t prepared for what she’d done. Following her was easier in theory than in action, for the moment he stepped past the threshold, he felt his heart seize a bit in his chest. The state of the room was a perfect picture of Bulma’s eruption. The contents of the small table by his bed had been thrown across the room and glass crunched beneath his feet as he attempted to shuffle after her. Standing in the same place she was, seeing her back to him, he could imagine that was what Bulma would have seen. 

She would have seen him there, just like that, arched over the bed in a similar way. Monitors flashing and warning that something went wrong, with no way to know the problem until it was too late to connect the pieces and remedy the problem. What would she have done if she had come by sooner and seen him? What would he have done if the situation would have been reversed? Logic knew it was necessary, both of them agreed. If she didn’t agree, she wouldn’t have come down so quickly. She’d have left the veil of horror on much longer. Emotion, however, was different. Emotion was the reason he’d done it to begin with. Emotion made him take his life, and emotion would have probably stopped her if he’d seen her do the same thing. Nothing about it made a bit of sense. 

The paralyzing force of it left him at the doorway while Bulma somehow managed to clear her work space. She had much more focus than he did. The amount of tubes and vials she laid out would have alarmed him if Vegeta were still alive. He would need all the blood she planned to put in those...but he supposed he wasn’t going to be using that for a while. 

Vegeta...unmoving, despite Bulma’s prodding and fussing with him. She mumbled and stuck needles into his skin. No response, obviously. He was never bothered by her medical treatments, not like Goku would have been. When she had things she wanted to try, Vegeta usually just let her do what she wanted, only complaining when she woke him up every two hours to check on him. All he wanted was sleep. Not because he was bothered by needles, or her constant trial and error of medications—even when they made him retch violently. Seeing him not even twitch made his stomach drop with the reminder. 

This was only temporary, yes, but he was dead. 

The next year would be like this. Silence. Unmoving. He would be dead for that time and the fact of that hadn’t hit him until that moment and he already felt sick before, but the pit of his stomach threatened to drop out. Death wasn’t a stranger to any of them. All of them had been dead before. He’d witnessed Vegeta die before, with his own two eyes. He’d fought beside him, dead. Death was a cheated system among them and they’d taken it for granted a bit too much, he realized. Even now, he was attempting to cheat it. He had done something, actually very terrible in order to cheat it. The implications of it weren’t out of his moral understanding, he just didn’t want to think about it too hard. Things were much easier for him in general if he didn’t try to think about them too hard.

However...nothing prepared him for looking over Bulma’s shoulder and seeing the distinct outlines of his handprints defined in Vegeta’s neck. Nothing could stop the onslaught of thoughts that cracked through the thin shield, an attempted safety net to protect himself after doing a bad thing for what he wanted to pray was a good reason. 

Vegeta never looked more peaceful in his life than he did when he was dead. His face lost all the harsh edge it always had, his usual frown was lost. The inward turn of his brows left them flat and he looked calm. Irritation lines that crinkled the lines of his face between his eyes and around his mouth, were all but gone and he almost could have looked a few years younger. If he wasn’t dead; if the image of it wasn’t harshly contrasted by the garish deep collar of bruising that stood out so sharply on his skin that Goku could see it from halfway across a room. 

Like a moth to a flame, he wandered to it. Something about the shocking mixture of pallid pale flesh next to the angry murky set of dark fingerprints, caught him in a cold, uncomfortable daze. No arguments could ever be made against his strength. If he’d wanted to snap Vegeta’s head clean off his neck, he was sure he wouldn’t have had to really put all that much more effort into making an attempt, with how little resistance he received. The strength that he had, could have ended him quicker than he would have been aware it had happened, but he needed to leave something for him to come back to safely. He couldn’t leave Bulma to have to fix his shattered neck too. 

Holding him down with enough force to not break him, but kill him was a balance that was painful in a way that he only really felt in the aftermath—when he placed his fingers in the same spots where the dark outlines were laid, fitting his fingertips in a perfect match. They belonged to him, they were his. These belonged to him. Vegeta had been a fight in every capacity from their introduction as enemies to their hard won camaraderie. But his death hadn’t been a fight at all, and all Goku had won was to be another name who held Vegeta’s fate in his hands—to wait for the uncertainty of whether or not Vegeta would ever accept that Goku decided to place himself in that position. 

These handprints were ownership that he had to wait for Vegeta to be angry with him. They acknowledged that Vegeta was actually, at that very moment, not capable of calling him an idiot, for his lack of thinking things through. He wasn’t going to wake up and yell at him. He wasn’t going to do anything. For a long time. A year didn’t seem like long, when he was around. But suddenly when he was gone, time seemed infinite, and even when they were in the very act of attempting to cheat death again, the reality of the permanency of death, suddenly hit him harder than he expected it to. For once, death felt like it had consequences.

For the second time in his life, someone he cared about beyond measure died directly because of him. But this time, it was on purpose. This time, he aimed for it. It was his intention. The palms of his hands burned from the force of what he had to put down on him, tilting his weight just enough—balancing between too much and not enough. Don't hurt him, but kill him. The sound of the monitors screaming in his head were different than waking to find his grandfather already gone. Feeling a thrumming pulse slowly ebb away into nothing against his thumbs because he was the one taking away the source of life, didn’t hold even remotely the same feeling. It didn’t make his chest tighten or drain the feeling out of his spine, leaving nothing but cold tremors climbing back up. His head felt heavy in a way nothing had before; dizzy. He felt dizzy. 

It wasn’t like he’d never killed anyone before. He’d had to, self defense had necessitated it. But self defense against an enemy wasn’t the same. Even against Vegeta of the past, this wasn’t the same. His thumbs set perfectly into the spot where he’d left his deep impressions; his hands covered the whole of his neck, cradling as if he was now made of glass. It was too late to be gentle, but he was—curling his fingers under. The burning sensation was all he could feel, from the very edge of his fingertips to the heel of his palms, he felt it so hot it was like fire. It crept up, like electric shocks into his elbows and through to his spine. 

Of course there would be no response this time, there had hardly been a response worth mentioning before, but the absence of a pulse was enough to bring everything down around him. Closed eyes and not even a twitch. No breath, no attempt to try. Face relaxed, as if sleeping, or nothing was wrong at all. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest that Goku was there, hovering above him. He could have been there holding him or assaulting him, and he wouldn’t have a reaction any different either way now. He was dead no matter what he did. 

Only temporary. That was all, just temporary. That was the point. They were going to bring him back and fix it and he would be fine. 

Bulma could do it, he believed in her. She was the smartest person he knew. She was trying so hard already and he’d do anything he could. 

Then he’d be back, he’d get better. There would be no more coughing blood. No more struggling to barely function. No more watching him slowly deteriorate and being unable to do anything at all to help him. He could get better. They could work through getting him back healthy, strong again. Goku would be his punching bag as much as he needed until he was strong enough to go toe to toe again. As long as he was alive and breathing and not…

Like this. Unresponsive. This, being only just a few steps further than he had been only hours before when he was alive, where he was barely living. Only the shreds of stubbornness probably anchored him there. He had to die.

He had to.

If he didn’t.

It wouldn’t work.

This wouldn’t work.

If he didn’t do it, then it really would be permanent. Then these hands wouldn’t be covering these bruises, but, they’d be burying this body forever. These bruises were necessary. They had to exist for him to continue existing and he could bear that if he knew Vegeta was going to come back. Even if he hated him, if he came back then he would be okay with that. Vegeta never liked him all that much anyway, it would be alright. The chances were better as long as they had more time. 

It was just that...no amount of repeating this in his head could quiet the voices telling him that Vegeta was gone. 

He was left trembling, hunched over his body, just like before—his mind racing around in directions he wasn’t able to catch. Could they have done anything any sooner or was it already far too late by the time the first symptom presented itself? He seemed fine up until the moment it started. Vegeta was Vegeta until he hit that slippery slope and then slipped between their fingers...between his fingers. Under his hands. 

Vegeta…

Of all people, why… Why was it clawing at him so hard, when he’d seen him die before, nearly fought him to the death once, personally. Why was it making his head feel like the pressure was going to crack his skull open.

He wanted the numbness back; he could understand that over the overflow of grief spilling out. The haziness it left him with, nearly made him forget where he was; it made him unable to hear Bulma. He had no idea she was calling him, and for who knew how long. Cold, trembling fingers on his wet cheeks didn’t even register until the pressure nearly left bruises on his own face and he was pulled out of the trap of his own mind. Bulma was there and her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear her. Reality felt so far away, that he felt like he had to train himself on her mouth to tune her back in, and to try and bring the sound of her voice back into recognition—as if he’d forgotten everything. 

“Goku...Goku—Hey, listen to me,” her voice came in dull to his ears, but he finally heard his name, wavering in her speech. She was shaken by him, even he could tell, and he was struck by a wave of something that he quickly identified as guilt. She was suffering too, but she was doing her best to keep herself together. She was the one who had to take samples from her husband’s unresponsive body—that he had left for her. He did the easy part. She had to do the hard work, she had to fix him. She had to take care of his body and make sure he would have something to come back to. 

All he did was safely kill the vessel to buy time. That was the easy part.

That was all. Like pulling a trigger, without the messy clean up. Just the vessel.

Vegeta was somewhere safe for now, just waiting to be brought back.

He felt sick.

“Bulma—I’m sorry,” he shook his head and repeated, feeling disconnected. 

Her finger gently wiped across his cheeks, thumbs drying his face and her tired eyes softened. The dark circles made her look older, older than Goku ever remembered her looking. She’d been going for a long time to try and fix this, and it was all on her face. But still, she had enough in her to comfort him, despite how exhausted she was; despite how much pain it must have given her. Losing one of them to a fight was completely different than this. This felt nothing like falling in battle. This was alien and traumatizing. She felt that too. She brought her hands from his face and took his hands into hers and pulled them away from Vegeta. He needed to be disconnected with the source of his anguish for the time being. She understood that. 

“I’ve almost withdrawn the blood I need. It took longer than I expected because it’s not flowing anymore, I had to forcibly drain. Once it’s done, then I need you to move him for me. I can put him in a chamber to freeze him. His body will stay in good condition until we revive him. I can still do a cold test on tissues…after that...then I want you to take a sedative, and go take a nap…” She didn’t give him the option to look away, holding his attention very sternly. He didn’t understand most of her science stuff, but he trusted she knew what she was doing.

A sedative didn’t appeal to him in any manner, but...he knew he would need one if he was going to see any real sleep, and he quietly nodded in agreement. 

“We’ll work through this Goku, I promise, I won’t let this be in vain.” Despite her best efforts, her dry cheeks met with fresh tears again and she wiped at them briskly, trying to keep the confidence of Bulma Briefs. “We’ve gotten ourselves out of bigger messes before, right…” she tried to smile, but her eyes were far away and threatening to spill over again.

“Yeah...you’re right,” he nodded, faking it as much as she was trying to.

But he never felt the weight of killing someone who meant so much to him so directly like that.

He couldn’t tell who he had suffocated harder, Vegeta or himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fic that’s been in progress for nearly two years, on and off, and I’m almost done with the last bit of it. Chapter 2 is like 10k words and chapter 3 is more.  
> The updates will come as I bring myself through the editing phase. I hope you find entertainment in Goku’s pain. This was my vent piece.


	2. Come Back (Before You Leave)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind potential triggers.

Bulma was smart, Goku always knew that. She had various instruments already set out in the sterile, frigid room, but everything in eyeshot that could have made him jumpy was carefully tucked away. Water running in the background broke the silence between them; but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It just was. Neither of them had the energy yet to talk about much. He hadn’t been awake long enough to try and piece together much more than a few simple responses of yes and no, and her questions were short and brief—asked in ways to allow him to answer easily. 

The sedative she’d given him had put him to sleep with remarkable ease and he was thankful for the mostly dreamless blackout it offered. He didn’t think he could deal with his thoughts invading his sleep too. Shutting down for a while served to reset his mind and give him a better start, so hopefully he could work it out and rationalize that everything was going to work out as long as they didn’t lose track of the end goal. Vegeta would be furious if he saw him coming apart after he’d gone through with it like that. Vegeta was the kind to make a decision and do it without any concept of regretting it once he was done with it. Goku envied that just a little bit at that moment.

Even if he’d done it slightly different, maybe it would feel less heavy; but somehow he doubted that would change anything about the outcome. 

What was done was done, now they had new trials to face and he had to help Bulma with the next part. She needed to get everything she could to try and come up with a solution, so that when they wished him back, he would have a cure to the problem. The dragon balls could bring him back to life, but that would only recover what almost killed him. He’d be brought back from death by suffocation, only to face the immediate threat of dying again. So they had to start right away. Bulma was already filling out charts and tapping away at her computer in preparation. 

She’d listed off everything she’d needed from him, but it went through him as soon as she spoke it. He was hearing it, but he was listening very thinly. Anything she wanted him to do, he’d do it, but the less he thought about it, the better. Nervousness was already soaking through, raising his heart rate a bit—he could see it on the little monitor she had him wearing. His blood pressure was a little high, but she said that wasn’t unusual, because evidently stress raises blood pressure. He believed her, because he wasn’t nearly the level of relaxed he usually experienced.

Since Vegeta had been moved into a safe room, tucked away and sealed in a place Bulma could access as she needed, he had been trying to calm himself back down. His attempts had varying success and he was hoping that the close proximity was to blame. Being able to shrug off most things that bothered him had always been one of his better skills, but this one was proving much more stubborn—appropriately like Vegeta himself. It just seemed that, every time he got close to placing some distance between the situation at hand and what brought them to it, his mind just had to draw up some scene to fold him back into it and attach him right back to why it was such a desperate thing to begin with. 

Though he’d been blessed with dreamless sleep, he’d woken a short time before Bulma had come to get him, and had been left to an uncomfortably vivid recollection of just how little appreciation he had for the very first sign of it all. The very first instance that told them all there was something very wrong. 

He woke, staring at the ceiling, but the tiles were invisible and he could see the day they were all in Bulma’s backyard. He and Vegeta were kicking around, throwing punches and sparring with little real bite. No one was paying them any real mind because they were always doing that. He’d found it unusual that Vegeta missed a dodge and Goku had to step back, with Vegeta playing it off. Not like he actually hit him. He clipped him a little and they squared off again like no misstep took place at all. Barely even a hiccup. Vegeta fought through being beaten near to death without stepping back, it would take more than a little lovetap by Goku to make him sit down.

Vegeta’s body language was different and he knew it, he could read it, but he didn’t know what to make of it and he wished he could have read it better. How do you read someone who closes the cover, though? Vegeta never did say how long he had felt unwell or how long some symptoms presented themselves, and how long he’d hid some of them. Did he know he was sick or did it sneak up on him as badly as it did them? 

Goku’s fist never connected, but he’d paused, close enough to Vegeta to hear the hitching in his breath and visibly see his chest quaking a bit. Several short coughs brought Vegeta’s hand up to his mouth and he covered his face with the back of his wrist, glancing from Goku to the rest of their family, who seemed adequately unaware of them or their pause in sparring. For the first time in Goku’s immediate memory, Vegeta willingly reached a hand out to brace himself against him and it left him with alarm bells going off in his head. 

Being bigger than Vegeta seemed to offer the concealment he was looking for, and Vegeta hunched a bit, taking as deep a breath as he could. Even to his ears, it sounded thick and wet; and the heavy hacking cough that followed left a spatter of red along Vegeta’s arm that didn’t seem to surprise Vegeta, based on his reaction. But it had panicked Goku the moment that coppery scent hit his nose—if the splash of red hadn’t already done the trick. He’d instinctively grabbed for him, bracing him, unsure of what to do. 

From the corner of his eye, he peeked to see if anyone else noticed they’d stopped, but they were all busy—distracted with other things and they weren’t aware of whatever trouble the two of them were getting themselves into. He and Vegeta were always fighting anyway. His larger frame obscured Vegeta and he waited for him to recover enough to tell him what to do. He wasn’t going to do anything without being told, because he knew Vegeta could get dangerously angry if it wasn’t what he wanted and it seemed pretty serious. He would admit he was spooked by he was behaving. 

The slow response didn’t come because he wasn’t in a hurry to react. From the looks of it, Vegeta appeared to be unable to do anything other than attempt to fill his lungs—sucking in another wet breath and coughing more shallowly to contain the sticky red mouthful of blood. The more he tried to exhale, the more his chest seemed to hitch in response—threatening to force him into a coughing fit. So he stopped, covering his mouth and glancing up at Goku. Vegeta’s lack of panic did not mean nothing was wrong; in fact, the dead steadiness of his eye contact, meant exactly the opposite. 

He mumbled lowly, unable to raise his voice or pass much air through his chest without setting off a chain reaction. Goku was close enough to hear some words pass his lips, “Bulma… Take me...to Bulma.” The severe look Vegeta had was enough to tell him that urgency was important, but the balled up fist in his shirt also drew him back for another brief warning, “be...discreet.” 

Casting eyes back over to where Bulma was, Goku was faced with the challenge of taking Vegeta back over to her, without alerting anyone else that something was wrong—which was amplified in its difficulty by the small fact that she had other people around her. Chi Chi was near. Gohan and Videl, with Piccolo somewhere close by watching Pan. Even the boys. Plus the rest of their friends not too far off. How was he supposed to waltz Vegeta over, choking blood out of his mouth—trailing down an arm—and not be noticed? Quickly, that was really the only solution. Discretion was only good for people who were crafty at it, Goku was not. If he got to Bulma, he could just remove Bulma as well and take them both somewhere else. That would solve the problem. 

Instant Transmission was the shortest path to Bulma’s side and he didn’t really give fair warning to Vegeta, he just needed to get there as quickly as possible. The space between them and her was closed before a breath could be taken and he could feel Vegeta’s body recoil at it. Instantly, he felt a little remorse for it, but the other options were to actually walk him over to Bulma or worse, call her over to them. Still, the arm that wrapped around him, sent more warning signs off in his head than he had the time to really process. Vegeta’s body was rigid and tense; he fully required Goku for support and when they were suddenly standing in front of Bulma, it didn’t take her long to notice. Especially not when the first thing she’d see was the trail of blood stained down his arm. 

“Oh my—Good god, what the hell, Goku what did you do—” She immediately stood up and leaned to check Vegeta and Goku tried to shush her, but Bulma was not someone to be shushed. So he panicked. 

“It’s...ah, nothing, I just...socked him in the nose too hard and—”

“Mouth—” Vegeta corrected in a gurgle, the back of his hand covering his face almost entirely. 

“—Mouth,” Goku nodded quickly, switching his made up excuse as to why there was blood coming out of Vegeta’s face. Anything to get Bulma to follow them without questioning it too abruptly, or out in the open. If it sounded like he just slugged Vegeta in the face too hard, then no one would be concerned—even if it sounded a little sketchy. Vegeta would be a lot less docile if that had been the actual case, but the quicker he played it out, the less they could proceed to question it. 

“You two really can’t behave for even a second, what did he break a tooth or—“ her brows turned together and she leaned out of her chair, toward him. 

“Too...long, faster,” Goku heard, grunted hoarsely, somewhere by his ear. He felt the quiver against him and he knew that Vegeta was not going to be able to retrain the convulsions he was fighting against. The coughs he forced down were likely trying to come back and if he was going to prevent making a scene, he needed to whisk Bulma away so she could see to him. 

“Sorry, we gotta borrow you for a sec, we’ll bring you right back, Bulma. Just gotta make sure he doesn’t get super mad before dinner, you know the drill,” he grinned, putting on his best carefree tone and clapped a hand on her small shoulder and teleported them to the nearest place that he knew they wouldn’t have anyone around them. One of Bulma’s work rooms. He’d been in there before, watching her work on some gizmo before and he knew no one else would be in there. They would be alone and it would take anyone else a few minutes to find them at least. 

The displacement never seemed a favorite of anyone’s, but it was necessary and Bulma was quick to recover from it when she caught wind of Goku playing the whole scene up. She stepped back to turn the light on in the room and he watched her expressions change when she came back around. Perhaps it was the view of them both that made her pause initially—after all, Goku had his arms nearly around Vegeta by the time she recognized a bigger problem was being presented to her. The two of them were never really known for being close in any capacity that didn’t involve throwing punches, after all. 

Vegeta tried to take a slow breath, but the jumping around had shifted around too much and triggered a seizing reaction in his chest that he was clearly attempting to fight. One hand closed around his mouth and the other tightened in the fabric of Goku’s shirt, unaware that he was still holding on to him so tightly. He could have ripped the fabric of his shirt for how hard he was fighting the reaction, but he was losing and Bulma was moving in closer with the same degree of alarm that Goku had when he first caught the sight of red before. 

Blood seeped between his fingers and the next shallow inhale finally collapsed into a series of sticky coughs—ones that sounded like Vegeta couldn’t get any air back in after. Red spattered down his arm, down the front of his shirt, and he was trying to back away to contain the mess, once he realized he’d already lost the fight with containment. Neither Bulma nor Goku were having that. Blood wouldn’t make either of them back away and Bulma was all but screaming when he finally had to lean forward and started to buckle. 

In all the fights they’d been through together, and all the battle damage he’d seen him take, he’d never seen him look so stricken before. The color just drained out of his face and the tension of his body seemed to just slip out, leaving the fate of his decent in Goku’s hands entirely. Legs gave out, but Goku didn’t let him collapse unassisted; he let him down slowly, with Bulma’s guidances to lean him forward. 

With a hand flat against his chest to hold him up, Goku could feel the air being drawn into Vegeta’s lungs and the subsequent reaction shouldn’t have surprised him—yet, somehow it did. The thick hacking and near pouring of dark red liquid across white tiles was so jarring that he was frozen for a moment. If this was a response to being punched through a mountainside, then he would be perfectly accepting of this, but this was out of the blue. This stemmed from absolutely nothing, he had been fine. Maybe a little slower than he thought Vegeta usually was, but…

“Oh my god, Vegeta,” Bulma’s voice filtered in and he watched her. She was checking his face, or trying to, but he was still instinctively turning away—not because he didn’t want her to help him, because obviously he’d told him to get Bulma, but because Vegeta only really knew how to withdraw his discomforts and get over them his own way. Unless it was absolutely necessary, Vegeta wouldn’t tell anyone he wasn’t feeling less than perfect. Bulma must have thought that at the same time he did. The way she trembled briefly before brushing her hair out of her face, was her body language for trying to process her next move in a composed manner, even if she was failing to remain as collected as she wanted to be. 

The only positive thing that Goku could think of in the moment was that by the time they had Vegeta on the floor, he was at least panting constantly; he was able to breathe with his lungs cleared out and his coughing fit mostly subsided. She instructed him to make sure that he wasn’t laid flat on the floor in case that happened again, so he was sitting down with him, Vegeta’s back to him to he could rest against him, able to quickly lean him forward if need be. There wasn’t any tension in his body, that he could feel. The whole ordeal had left him unable to function beyond focusing on breathing. 

Goku watched his chest rise shallowly and listened. The struggle was painfully plain to see, but he was trying. Vegeta wouldn’t just allow himself to look pitiful, even if he was choking blood all down the front of his new white shirt. The shirt Bulma had been so mad about them getting dirty when Goku immediately threw punches upon their arrival. She should have known. It was what they did. Vegeta probably even warned her in advance. Sure, it was a good color on him, but not a realistic one. It only served to make the splatters of deep red more glaring, spread across his chest in a deeply worrying volume. 

Vegeta would be mad if he had the energy to feel the way Goku was holding him. Like he could slip through his fingers if he wasn’t attentive enough. He wasn’t a scientist, but he knew when to be concerned about how much blood should and shouldn’t be on the outside of someone’s body. The first inkling of fear was there in that moment, but the shock of the moment had made it really difficult to identify that was what it really was at the time. Only when Goku woke up, recounting that whole moment, did he really understand just how deeply entrenched that sensation was. Looking down at Vegeta, and seeing him looking nearly dead, had brought back that same very sudden, terrifying moment. 

Somehow, it was almost hilarious that the one who handled it the best had always been Vegeta. He had been the one spewing blood all over the floor and himself, and he had passed out not long after due to lack of oxygen from hyperventilating—as Bulma said it was—but he was the one who was the calmest when he woke back up afterward and was told what happened. She had an oxygen mask on him and fluids running through him and he still had the nerve to make a comment about never getting that many blood stains out of a white shirt. 

Maybe that was why it was so difficult to end up at the point they were; because Vegeta was incredibly gifted at shoving everything under a rug and disregarding the severity of it all. His acceptance of his fate was actually rather remarkable, given everything. For as angry, spiteful and bitter as Goku had known Vegeta could be, he’d also known him to adaptable. Maybe a bit grouchy about it, but perfectly capable of adjusting without much issue. If Bulma couldn’t fix him, then he wasn’t supposed to be fixed and that was that. 

Goku hated it. 

Vegeta was supposed to be angrier about it. 

Watching him slowly deteriorate until he was unable to even stay awake for more than a few hours at a time, subjected to a bed almost permanently, was torture worse than the horror of almost seeing him potentially drop dead at his feet had been. They hadn’t understood what that incident would mean or how it could be more terrifying than that. The sudden alarming fear wasn’t the same, but he’d take that to the slow agony of wondering each day of just when Vegeta would accept he’d done his best. 

Maybe that was the reason Goku took the matter into his own hands, really. Fear of Vegeta’s acceptance. Dying people learn to accept being tired. He needed Vegeta’s spiteful side, too stubborn to accept dying; but he couldn’t take the risk that he’d already put down his boxing gloves. 

If nothing else, he’d be angry enough when wished back to fuel his recovery. No matter what he thought Goku intended.

I didn’t mercy kill you, Vegeta, I absolutely did it on purpose, but if you thinking that makes you come back with fury enough to get better, then I’ll take it… 

And he’d do it again if need be. Despite the awful sinking feeling he had when he thought about it, he would take his life as many times as he needed to if it gave back another chance. Somewhere, deep in his scattered thoughts, he knew there was something intrinsically wrong with that. To care about someone so deeply, but be willing to purposefully hurt them was wildly twisted—even if he knew the outcome. The dragon balls had made them horrendously complacent, and even he was aware of it. He was actively abusing them for what amounted to personal gain. That was what villains did.

Bulma supported him entirely in this endeavor, but really, she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. If she did, however, she should have gone along with him. She even suggested as much herself, implying that the thought crossed her own mind. But she couldn’t bring herself to do what he did. Maybe because she was softer than he was—not battle hardened or whatever other attribute left him able to put his hands down and send Vegeta away for a while. Or probably she just lacked his impulsive nature to do things and deal with the aftermath without regard to consequences. 

Maybe he just didn’t expect the consequences to be in relation to how he’d feel versus what they would do afterward. 

I want to go back in time and spend more time with him. Pay attention to him. See everything that isn’t right and fix it then...But I can’t...I can’t even fix it now. I can’t do any of that...that’s Bulma’s stuff….I can’t just punch that out of you, Vegeta. You didn’t tell us… How do we know if you didn’t tell us? What was I supposed to do…? 

The soft palm of reality gently took him back and he blinked, coming back from the place his mind had taken him, away from the room. Recounting the long memory over and over since he’d woken up had done nothing for him, but it filled the silence and it took Bulma to bring him back. Her small hand cupped his cheek and he turned his face into it just a little bit, blinking a little more for the bleariness of his vision. It was happening again and he was trying to work all that out. She was patient with him and he was so grateful for that. 

“They’re almost here, Goku. Do you need a moment to step out? You’ve been in this room for a while? I’ve got everything ready and the charts are all done. Prepping everything again wouldn’t take that long if you need some fresh air,” she offered, but he shook his head. They were waiting on Gohan and Piccolo. She had called and asked them both to come over and assist her with this, because they both knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep calm well enough for her to withdraw the right samples without hurting her, or possibly him. 

“I’m fine. It’s just, still waking up,” he admitted, partially telling the truth. The amount of sedatives she gave him probably could have put most normal people into a coma, and he almost wish it had put him in one for just a little longer, but the haze he was in was not really a fun one at all. He lacked the desire to really try and interact and that was very much not like him at all. Seeing Gohan and Piccolo was going to present him with another inevitable and he was only partially prepared for that. 

They hadn’t exactly told anyone else the extent of Vegeta’s condition yet. The hope had been that they would have fixed him long before it would be necessary to inform them he was critically ill. Unfortunately, that was no longer the case. That point had passed and now there was no point in being quiet about it for Vegeta’s sake. Vegeta had been the one that didn’t really want anyone else to know about it. His opinion...really didn’t matter now that he wasn’t capable of being mad about it. 

While stepping outside sounded so appealing, he didn’t want to risk being outside when Gohan and Piccolo arrived. Bulma would explain everything if he was gone and—logically that made more sense to let her—he wanted to be the one to tell them how it happened. That it was his idea, not Bulma’s. Piccolo’s suspicion toward Bulma misusing the Dragon Balls would be immediate, but it wasn’t her fault. Not that Goku thought Piccolo would stop her—he understood the implication of losing Vegeta as a power safety net, if nothing else; he just knew that Piccolo wouldn’t find much to respect in the constant mishandling of the Dragon’s power. Or worse, might assume that Bulma asked him to do what he did, instead of him doing it of his own accord. 

He wasn’t even sure what Gohan would think. The knowledge of his son’s interactions with Vegeta was limited, but Gohan cared about everyone. He was likely going to be marginally upset about it, but there was really no easy way to address it. Bulma’s plan was to tell them after she was done drawing blood, some bone tissue and some other spinal fluid she said she needed. He didn’t ask for more details. The less he knew, the better. They were just going to be there to make sure he was able to be calmed down enough for her to do what she needed. She didn’t want to drug him any more to do it. Anything in his bloodstream could, she said, could alter the sample, and if she got good samples once then—hopefully—she wouldn’t have to do it again. 

Unexpectedly, seeing Gohan walk through the door didn’t make him feel anxious for the moment. Knowing he was there, meant she was going to be doing her thing soon, but having someone else nearby seemed to relieve something else that he wasn’t able to identify. Gohan had a smile, an unknowing wave and ushered Piccolo in without a clue as to why they were really there. The innocence of it made Goku feel briefly normal for a moment. That wouldn’t last, but he clung to it and offered a wave back to his son. 

“Thanks for coming, Gohan,” Bulma waved him over to her. She had paper gown and gloves set aside, precautions to try and be as medically sterile as possible, despite being less of a doctor and more of an engineer by trade. Goku had come to really believe that Bulma could learn and be whatever she wanted to be if she had a strong enough reason to do it. Vegeta was her reason for this. 

“No problem, though, I’m not really sure how on Earth you agree to…” He nodded toward Goku, as if he was trying to be shifty about what he was implying. Maybe Goku didn’t actually know what she was planning? How else did she get him to agree to what she’d told him over the phone? He was perfectly aware of what Bulma told him. He had been sitting right there when she made the call. 

“He knows, I wouldn’t spring that on him without his consent, Gohan. God forbid he get spooked and Instant Transmission away in the middle of that, you know? I asked him, he agreed. I got everything ready, charts all done up. All the materials are set aside. We just need to draw a few things, fill up a few tubes to store and he’ll be good to go. He’ll have to lay down for a while after, but then he’ll be just fine.” 

“What exactly are you doing that necessitates poking Goku?” Piccolo eyed them critically, as he was known to do. He was aware of Goku’s aversion to needles and Bulma was about to handle a few of them. Without a pretty good reason, it would be relatively easy to assume he wouldn’t be easy to convince, especially not if she was just messing around. Piccolo’s assumption was normally not an incorrect one.

“I’m working on a serum for something, I need need different samples. Goku agreed to it. I’m not bullying him, so don’t look at me like that,” the tone of her voice held just a little edge of defense. She didn’t like being put on the spot, but she had no choice, Goku really hadn’t given her one. If he could quell the nervousness on his own, he wouldn’t need them to begin with. 

“So much so that you need us to hold him down for you?”

“He agreed to it, that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly perfectly fine with, you know,” she tilted her head, and Goku knew what she meant, but Bulma was trying to downplay the idea. It didn’t lessen the nasty quiver that curled up the base of his spine and tightened his chest—jumping his heart rate a little bit. 

“Dad, are you really alright with this?” Gohan leaned over and asked him, and it took Goku a minute to snap his attention to him. Focus was difficult for a few reasons, but calming his rolling stomach was taking most of his attention and he tried to shrug it off with a weak smile and brief nod. Gohan seemed to understand it. He was better about reading between the lines than most; and the uncomfortable body language he was catching off of his father wasn’t because he was doing it against his will, it was entirely because he was fighting a natural reaction to flee. 

He couldn’t flee. Not until he did everything that Bulma asked and offered her every bit of aid he could. There was just not much else he could do otherwise. The best he had was to follow her orders and if she wanted to put him on a table and poke him a bunch, then he was going to let her. He would squirm and have to be restrained, but he’d make it work. Or try to.

Gohan’s hand down set gently on his back and he nearly leapt across the room. His heart rate was jumping and he folded his arms in front of him, leaning forward a little to calm back down. The discomfort over this was illogical, he knew it. There was no actual reason to be so wary or fearful of it. He fought things in his life that could punch him into a fine red mist, and yet the paralyzing trauma of being stuck with a needle seemed to do him in with more efficiency than being beaten within an inch of his life. 

“You want to do all this to him and he’s twitching like this? Why don’t you just stick Vegeta and be happy with that?” Piccolo asked, picking up a chart to read over what Bulma intended to do and silence fell over both of them. Bulma had no immediate answer, but Goku could see her shoulders stiffen. He couldn’t restrain the cringe that crossed his face and he looked down to avoid any eye contact. The subject was a touchy one and neither of them had been prepared for it to be brought up so soon. Letting it get the better of him wouldn’t help them at the moment, however, and he shook himself out a bit. 

“I’m fine,” he quickly recovered before any more comments could be made. “Let’s just...get started already? The sooner it’s over the better right?” He glanced up at Gohan, feeling queasy, silently asking him to persuade Piccolo a little bit. 

“Right,” Gohan moved away from him and he breathed a little easier. He wasn’t expecting it to make him feel better to have him move away, but he appreciated it more when Gohan was closer to Piccolo, because Gohan took over directly with Bulma and Piccolo asked less questions that made him want to flee. “So what is the chart plan, Bulma?” He son asked, inspecting the chart himself and reading down the list. She had it all planned out already and he knew it was going to be a bit of an ordeal. He didn’t want to even hear it again, but he was going to. 

“Blood draw first. I’ll get a pint and some vials so I don’t have to do it again for a while. Very simple. That one shouldn’t take long. Just a few minutes. I can lay him back and stick an arm. That should be a no brainer. The other two are going to be a little more complicated. We’ll get this one first and then worry about that, okay?” She didn’t want to go into details too much and Goku knew perfectly well why that was. If he had to think about it. He would start to agonize about it. He already was agonizing about it, but he wasn’t quite at the point of squirming yet. Almost. 

He breathed in deeply and then forced it out slowly, but his heart rate still felt like it was pacing five times faster than it was supposed to be going. He wanted to run away, but Vegeta was worth sitting through it. It wasn’t like he had to watch it. He just had to physically exist through it and not fight or run away from it while Bulma was doing it. That was his only requirement. That was all he had to do. He could do that. Close his eyes and pretend he wasn’t there and maybe he wouldn’t even know it was happening. 

It wouldn’t work, but he tried it nonetheless; exhaling a deep breath and closing his eyes. He could hear them moving. A drawer pulling out and things being shifted around; gloves being snapped. Not seeing things made him hear everything and his mind made him imagine more than he probably would have seen. It didn’t actually help anything at all, but he didn’t know what was coming precisely. He tried to tell himself that, anyway. He found himself letting go of his held breath when Bulma’s hands settled on his face and he had to open his eyes and look up at her. 

“Do you want to lay back for me, Goku? I only need one arm. You can pick the arm.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” he shook his head thickly, not wanting to pick anything at all. Participating didn’t sound feasible and any answer he’d give would be made at random, not out of real decision making anyway. He did let her guide him to sit back, feeling a sudden chill in the room that wasn’t there before. The room was not any colder than it was before, but he felt like his body lost warmth that it had moments before. A chill settled over him that made him fidget, wringing his hands until he’d cracked all of his knuckles—going as far as to absently twist and pull the joints of his fingers until they popped too. 

“Go for the left one, that’s going to be the weaker arm,” Gohan took over for him, being able to rationalize it when Goku was too nervous to even try. He was already far away in his head, wanting to be anywhere else. 

He closed his eyes again, shutting them tightly—face scrunched up as if he thought the harder he tried to block the sight out, the farther away it would take him. He couldn’t just vanish, he had to be there, physically. He’d rather donate his blood by punching himself in the face until blood came out, but he knew Bulma needed it this way. He knew she had to do this very meticulously. Her tests had to be done in a laboratory and he didn’t get any of that science stuff, but he knew enough to know she had to have it completely uncontaminated. Knowing that didn’t make him less tense, however. He just followed Gohan’s ushering, turning his head to the side once he was settled back. 

One arm was out at his side and Gohan took the other. The grip he had on it was alternating between slacked and crushing, as if he couldn’t decide which sense of panic his body was going with; paralyzing fear or fighting mode. Both of them felt like very easy defaults, but he pushed himself to remain neutral between them. Bulma was very swift, she wasn’t going to dawdle around with this, but it felt like an eternity of a swelling suffocating sensation that kept making his mind scream to run away. Run. Run. Run.

It was like drowning in a small plastic cup that he was holding to his own mouth. He could pull it away, gasp for air and throw the cup away; but in this case, he needed the water. He just... had to think of something else... or he would cave and throw it all away and fight. She tied a rubber band just above his elbow and he almost recoiled. Instinct knew why she did that and what followed—she was promoting a strong pulse and she was going to be able to stick him very easily as long as he was still enough. 

“Piccolo—” Her voice cut into the silence he’d created in his head and he felt hands above his knees, pushing them back down. 

“I got him.” 

He hadn’t even realized he’d curled in on himself. 

“Goku, I need you to try to relax a little, your arm is too tense,” she tried to soothe him, but he was just shy of quivering at her words. “Gohan, can you make sure he stays down?” The tiredness in her voice made him feel guilty, because he wasn’t making this easy, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose, he was trying to calm down. He really was, but he only felt worse. Shaking worse. Heels sliding on the table a bit as he tried to move away—stopped by Piccolo who was not giving him an inch to move. Panic was just shy of fully taking over and he felt sick down to the pit his stomach, where he was begging the sensation to stop and let him settle down just enough to get this part out of the way. This was supposed to be the easy part—

Please—

He sucked in a breath and held it. 

“If he’s like this for the next part, Bulma, we’re going to need to get Vegeta to help us, there’s no way we’re holding him down for that if we can’t get him to be still just to stick his arm.” 

All the air left him and he opened his eyes. For some reason, that struck him like a fist and the tension slipped out of his body. Whether Bulma understood the reason for it, he didn’t know, but he felt her quickly move to action and Gohan turned his face toward him. He didn’t see what she was doing and he didn’t feel it either. He was numb. She could have punched him in the throat and he probably wouldn’t have registered it. Hearing Vegeta’s name sent a different emotion through him that overwrote the one that had him writhing uncomfortably on the table and his body was tired and confused, leaving him breathing raggedly, but almost sedated. 

He wanted to run away for a new reason. He wanted to go to a place where no one could see him completely fold. 

“Vegeta’s not going to help,” he mumbled, laying his head back and staring at the ceiling. The band loosened on his arm and Bulma laid a towel over his arm so he didn’t have to glance over and see tubes sticking out of his arm. She took advantage of his moment and he appreciated it. 

“Dad, the next part is in your spine, if you jerk around while she’s doing that, it’s going to hurt a lot more. I know Vegeta has an attitude, but—” 

“He’s dead, Gohan, he’s not going to be able to help,” he cut him off flatly. 

He refused to look at anyone; eyes remaining fixed on the ceiling. 

The silence that followed felt like a bomb. It hit him with so much force that he struggled to figure out how to deal with it. What could anyone say to that? It wasn’t delivered with even the slightest hint of grace, and maybe he wanted to shock them. He wanted them to be as horrified by this news as he was. Even if he was the reason for it. Vegeta meant more to Goku than he probably meant to the others, but he was someone to them. He was one of them, whether he would have acknowledged it. Vegeta hid dying on purpose, but Goku couldn’t hide it the same way. 

“Goku—” Metal clattering nearly covered Bulma’s voice, but Goku didn’t even flinch. 

“What do you mean he’s dead?” 

“Dad?” 

“Just what I said, Vegeta’s dead. He got sick and Bulma’s trying to fix it, that’s why we’re here.”

“Goku, we were going to explain this afterwards,” her voice was strained, laced with concern. The way he was talking was bothering her. Truthfully, it was bothering him. He hadn’t expected to be able to say it as simply as he did. Vegeta’s dead. Came off the tongue to his friend and son like it was casual conversation. It was that easy. Why wasn’t he there? He died. That simple. Death was made so trivial. 

“Dead—Wait, if he’s dead, then what exactly are we doing?” Of course, leave it to Piccolo. “What’s going on here? Is it contagious? Are you sick too?” 

Goku didn’t answer, he just shook his head, flexing his hand at Bulma’s gentle persuasion. She was still working on filling vials, labeling them and setting aside samples. Her expression was one of disappointment in him, but he was too tired to feel actively guilty about it. 

“He’s dead, like actually dead?” Gohan repeated, he seemed to be more taken with the fact that Vegeta was not alive anymore. “But....He can’t be brought back with the dragon balls then…” The alarmed glances his son made from him to Bulma illustrated the compassion that he had, to be that disturbed by the possible permanence of his death. Vegeta, who initially pummeled both of them horribly, somehow meant something to both of them in some capacity. Gohan just loved everyone, anyway. 

Briefly, it occurred to him that Vegeta’s own son would have to find out soon enough, but he shoved that nugget of knowledge down so hard that he almost choked on it. He couldn’t handle that at that moment. 

“It’s...If Bulma can figure out how to cure what made him sick, we figured out a work around. He’ll be fine. We’ll wish him back, cure him and he’ll get better, like nothing happened. He was dying, but he didn’t die a natural death. He got too close, so I killed him to make sure it wouldn’t count as natural death.” Even if the sounds came from his own mouth, they didn’t feel like he spoke them and he felt horrified by them again. The feeling in his chest was like a foot crushing down on him, worse than being stomped by any enemy he’d ever had. 

He thought he could explain it and not have this reaction, but he was wrong. 

Bulma’s arms wrapped around him and he barely responded to her, but he welcomed the sensation of it. She seemed to realize he was drifting away, but had little power to really save him from it. He was alone with what he’d chosen to do and there wasn’t much that could be done about it. His impulsive behaviors were going to damn him eventually, he just didn’t expect it in this capacity. Really, he should have known better than to think he could do such a thing and walk away from having it drag him down. He hadn’t been able to throw the Spirit Bomb at Buu when Vegeta was in the way, in order to save everyone, why did he think he could outright kill Vegeta and not have it haunt him. Even for the sake of saving him. 

He’ll be okay in the end, he kept arguing. 

Vegeta is still dead in your hands, it echoed back and he shook his head, wrapping an arm around Bulma—only barely aware of the other arm still attached to tubes. 

He would be having a fit if he saw Goku acting in such a way, but functioning was becoming so trying. He just wanted him back. He was gone long before Goku put his hands on him and that was the worst part of it all. Vegeta was dying for a while and he watched the person he knew slip away before his body did and the torture of it was possibility that Vegeta would go out like that, like a flicker. Kill him and give him back his fight. Easy. Easy. 

So easy. 

“Bulma...Can we finish this,” he mumbled at her, after a few minutes. His body sagged and he wanted to lay down, curl up and sleep. Sleep for the next year. But he had things to do and if they didn’t do them, then they would be wasting time and effort. His anxiety didn’t go away, but he felt less compelled to fight. Vegeta had taken over most of his thoughts; transferred from his irrationally crippling fear, to the feelings that seemed to snake down into his heart and dig deep in until it hurt like nails being driven into him. 

She nodded, letting him go. No more conversations were prompted that he responded to. He was already gone from it. Gohan stayed close by and he clung closer to him than anything else. As long as he focused on Gohan, he seemed to be able to focus Bulma out of his mind entirely—largely because he wasn’t actually seeing Gohan. His mind was still back with Vegeta and he was back in that room. 

The small table Bulma had him lean over, left him facing away from her entirely and his instincts to withdraw needed Piccolo to assist her in holding him still—wrapping his arms around him while Gohan took both of his arms to try and keep him with him. Try as he might—no matter how hard he trained his eyes on Gohan’s mouth—he couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was doing his best to remain as still and calm as he could despite the returning fear, mixing with his overwhelming sense of sadness. 

I miss you, he thought. The downward turn of his lips pulled harder and he tried to force it back up, because it was threatening to dissolve a neutral expression into one that was a lot more telling than he wanted. 

The needle that went into his arm hadn’t been felt due to his emotional state, but he felt this one, when she punctured the skin and dug it in between the vertebrae; and it was enough to make him grind his teeth. It wasn’t excruciating, the area was numbed locally, but the sensation of displacement was beyond anything he wanted to be part of and he couldn’t move with it. He had to simply bear it until she was done, leaning forward and waiting for her to withdraw. He was warned that this could leave him with a headache in the aftermath, but he felt like he already had one going into it and he cradled his head in his hands. The process of it all made him feel like he was drifting instead. 

His head felt so heavy in his hands and he blocked the light out with his palms, vaguely aware of his son checking on him—mumbling just enough to assure him that he was fine, though not sure if his mumbling amounted to anything more than incoherent noises. He didn’t bother to make a second confirmation, he just kept his head down. If anyone was talking to him, then their voice stopped reaching him anyway. The only thing his tired brain could keep track of was taking each breath, one at a time. He still had that. One at a time. 

That was more than Vegeta had. He had to appreciate that. 

“Kakarot, honestly, you’re getting actually irritating about this.” An echo of his voice flickered in his head, but it felt so real that he almost wanted to open his eyes and look for him. There was some comfort in the memory of it; the scathing tone of his remark, that was really meant to sneer at him for being softer than Vegeta liked him to be. He was a saiyan, he should act more like one. Vegeta never liked a lot of his traits, and he never had to tell him for Goku to know that. That he irritated him was not exactly hard to determine, but that didn’t keep him away. Especially not when Vegeta was sick, slipping away from them. Goku had hovered until Vegeta was tired of seeing his face every day; or at least he had done so while Vegeta was able to stay awake longer than a few hours a day. 

That was where that recollection bubbled back up from, coming from somewhere further away, when Vegeta was still coherent. With his eyes closed and everything purposefully focused out, he could draw the picture of what Vegeta had looked like at that time. The last time he’d remembered him looking like himself in any capacity. It felt like ages ago, but it really wasn’t that long. He’d been looking a little hollow, but he still had the same bite that made Vegeta....Vegeta. The dead acceptance hadn’t set in yet and he still seemed like he had some spark of life in him, but it had started to seep in. 

Goku had slipped into the spot next to him on the couch, looking over at Vegeta and thinking he looked so much smaller than he’d ever remembered. The scowl on his face only deepened with Goku’s concern, but he didn’t comment on that, he just leaned back further against the back of the couch. “You’re not going to continue to be this much of a damn girl about this are you? I have one enough already, Kakarot.” 

“...Ah...Just not really used to seeing you like this is all. C’mon, it’s not like this is exactly...normal…I’m just...” 

“Annoying?” 

“Worried,” he frowned, exhaling with an irritated puff behind it. Vegeta was not accepting of his concerns, because he was ready to deny the severity of his condition until the grave met him up to his chin. His stubbornness didn’t fade, even if he seemed to be. 

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like you didn’t almost die from this very same sort of thing before, now didn’t you?” 

He frowned deeply, “that’s not the same thing at all—”

“It’s very much the same thing, intervention is the only thing that saved you. We’re not immune to everything on this planet, Kakarot. It’s honestly a surprise nothing like this came along before. You were raised here, I should have been much more susceptible, having no prior immunity.” 

“You sound like you’ve accepted it...I don’t like that.” 

“What should I sound like? Deny it’s happening? I’m tired, Kakarot. Tired of being pissed off about it and especially tired of your goddamn moping. She’s doing whatever it is she thinks she can do and if that works, then all of this sniveling is going to make you look like a bigger clown than you already are.”

“And if it doesn’t work, then it’s permanent this time.” 

“Good, then I finally get some peace and quiet without you ruining it.” 

“Vegeta…” 

“Go take a nap, then think about what you’re actually doing, because this is honestly nonsense, and it’s giving me secondhand embarrassment. And you know how I feel about your secondhand embarrassment.” 

Goku blinked at him, brows turning together like he didn’t quite understand what he was saying. The words didn’t quite connect with him the way he expected them to and the whole scene felt fuzzier in recollection. He didn’t recall Vegeta ever saying that to him, but he could have said a lot of things that Goku didn’t fully process. He had been lost in his feelings for quite a while about seeing Vegeta’s health decline so rapidly. It wasn’t unthinkable for him to have gaps in what he remembered, but he just couldn’t place it; the familiarity slipped away, right through his burning fingers. 

“I don’t...understand…” He found himself muttering, voice low and unsure. 

“You need to put this away for now. Obviously, it’s not doing anything for you. Escapism isn’t your strong suit, fool.” 

His mouth hung open a little bit and he was at a loss for words briefly, shaking his head and trying to make sense of it. But it felt like he was sinking and only soured his stomach and made him feel heavy. Breathing felt hard for a moment, but then it evened out, slowly, until he could take longer breaths. His attention was hard to keep still, but he remained fixed on the hazy form of what he thought was just his memory, clinging to it. It just didn’t make sense anymore and he was weakly trying to fit the pieces back together, lacking the coherence to properly do it. 

“I don’t…” 

“Take a hint, yes, I know. Lay down, and sleep. It’s not that damn hard,” he prompted him again and Goku felt drawn toward the idea of sleep, but pulled back toward the memory of his voice. 

“It’s just that…” 

“You’re fabricating me, you nitwit.” 

“I’m…” 

“I’m not real. You’re making me up. I’m just here to make you feel like I’m still within reach.”

“...You’re...not...you’re gone.” 

“Temporarily. That was the plan, wasn’t it? You’re going to bring me back and fix this. So stop whimpering. It doesn’t suit you at all.” 

Maybe it didn’t suit him. It didn’t feel like him either, but none of the things he felt afterwards, were familiar feelings at all. In his head it was a sound idea and in action, it was the necessary one; but in his heart, it was the one haunting him. It wasn’t like he’d never made wildly bold decisions in the past that would make his friends all raise brows at him, but this one may actually go a step beyond them all. Perhaps his response didn’t suit him, in the same manner the action didn’t. 

“I just…”

“Don’t even say a word, you’re wasting your time. Close your eyes and leave me alone for god’s sake.” 

Goku resisted the weak grunt that hung in his throat; even tucked away in his mind, Vegeta was a jerk. Strangely, that was comforting. His abrasiveness, or the familiarity of it, offered some peace in his mind— enough that he could lean his head back and quietly settle back into the same place he felt he drifted before. It was empty, but warm—a place he could let his mind stop thinking about anything for a while and rebuild its strength. 

The stillness that fell over him seemed to seep through his skin and into his bones. He was tired and didn’t want to move. If he was asked to open his eyes, he didn’t think he could do it. Each deep breath just pushed him further away until he was even unaware of his own body. He imagined it like laying on Nimbus at night with his eyes closed, floating along quietly. He wondered if Nimbus would respond to him the same way as before, but the thought slipped through his fingers as quickly as it surfaced. Nothing stayed with him long enough for him to cling to, unless it was Vegeta. 

But even that was met with an internal voice telling him to shut up and sleep; echoing from somewhere deep within, until he had to let it all slip away and succumb to nothingness for a while. Nothingness was a short blessing, where he let himself stay for a while—shut away from every trace of the present, past, or future that he had to contend with. Thinking wasn’t his strongest game, he left that to everyone else. He went off his instincts and his heart. Thinking was Vegeta’s stronger point. Vegeta was the one who was supposed to be the tactical mind of them. He left him to have to do it. 

This is what happens when Vegeta lets him take the wheel. 

“Wake up Kakarot, are you going to sleep for days? Lazy clown.” 

Echoes again, but he grumbled in response, wanting to reach out to it. All he wanted was to sleep more, but the pressure in his head was telling him he shouldn’t. The restlessness in his legs meant he’d been asleep long enough, but his mind was still so worn down. If only his body could slow down and let his mind catch up a little bit. Maybe Vegeta’s constant comments about him being a little childish had a basis in something, but he preferred having the carefree mentality to match the physical vitality of his body; when the opposite resulted in such terrible mismatches like this. Vegeta was angry and grumbly all the time, maybe he was used to feeling horrible like this. Goku wasn’t. 

“Get up, fool.” 

“C’mon, Vegeta, you’re not even real, can you please be nicer?” His thoughts bounced back to it, aware with some absurd clarity that he was being chastised in the way his mind thought Vegeta would, if he was there. 

“No. Get back to reality, you’ve been out long enough. It’s been days.” 

“....Days…?” 

“Days. Go back. Now.” 

“Days…” 

Days? Could it have really been days? There was no way it had been days. He had closed his eyes only for a moment to escape. How could he have escaped for days? That seemed ridiculous, even for him...but as the light filtered into his vision and he blinked slowly—working the bleariness out—he realized the room was completely different than what he had last been in. The white walls and clinical chill was replaced by a warmer bedroom, with pastel blue. A window was open and a breeze was let in, leaving fresh air that allowed him to breathe deeply without his heart rate surging. He’d hated that small room, but why wasn’t he still in it? 

Sitting up made him see immediately that he had been asleep for a while—just for how stiff he felt. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed took so much more energy than he anticipated and half of him wanted to just roll back over and lay face down back into the bed. The other half was fighting off the mental Vegeta yelling at him to get out of bed and stop being such a wuss. What did he want from him anyway? Why couldn’t he just sleep a little more? Just because Vegeta pushed himself too much all the time, didn’t mean he had to—

He rubbed his face absently. He was arguing with a figment of his imagination. That was going to get him nowhere, but he was already awake and the best he could do, was get out of the bed. That meant Mental Vegeta won, but only by default. 

Before he had a chance to get out of the room, or even get himself together, the door cracked open and he turned his head toward it—seeing a familiar big pair of eyes poke in to check on him. When she realized he was awake, Bulma’s expression filled with relief and she smiled with a large exhale. She stepped in and leaned on the door a little, with a hand on her hip. 

“I’m glad to see you’re finally awake, you had me worried for a little bit, Goku,” she sounded tired, but looked uplifted by him being awake. 

“...I’m...sorry, I didn’t...realize, what happened…?”

“You passed out in the middle of the spinal tap. Gohan was talking to you and you just clocked out. He and Piccolo helped me get you through the rest of it and settled you in. So it was all fine. You did well. I got a lot of samples to build a good all around saiyan profile of yours against Vegeta’s on. I can see what was different about this time to the time you got hit with the virus and see what I can do to fill in gaps. And make sure it doesn’t affect any of the rest of you either. Thank you for being so good about it, Goku. I know that was hard,” she smiled, coming over to him and pressing a soft palm to his face, kissing his temple with the warmth of a mother. When did Bulma get like that? He wondered. 

He tilted his head up sheepishly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to just see myself out like that...Wait...wasn’t there another test you’d wanted to do—”

“Don’t worry, I did that one while you were out. Bone marrow biopsy is big needle, and I figured you wouldn’t mind not being around for that one, huh?” She ruffled his bed hair a little bit and sat on the edge of the bed beside him. “I did give you a sedative afterwards so you could sleep for a while after. You were doing a lot of very distorted muttering and I think you needed the sleep. If you find you can’t sleep for a while, let me know, okay?” 

“Thank you, Bulma…” He turned toward her and wrapped his arms around the little woman. She was his first and closest friend, he trusted her with anything she’d do. She was the smart one and she was going to make Vegeta better. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, just let me know?” 

“Absolutely, for now, I need you to go take a shower and eat something. I’ve already talked to Chi Chi and Gohan went over there and explained everything a little better, so she knows why you’re not home, okay? You won’t get in trouble. It’s gonna take a while to do all this, but we’ll get there,” she nodded at him, with a confident upturn to her lips. If anyone could do it, it would be her. “And when he gets back, we’ll take turns slugging him a good one, okay?” 

A weak chuckle managed to make it up through his weak chest, “Yeah. Sounds great. I’m definitely down for that.” He held her close for another moment before he let her go, so he could do as she asked of him. Some bit of him wanted to grab her and cling to her for a while longer, but he needed to shake himself out of the haze he had gotten himself in. A shower would help with that. 

“I’ll come see you in a little bit, okay? Eat what you can, Goku. Don’t force yourself. Gohan said he’d come back tonight, so he may stop in and join you. Don’t rush.” She pointed at him, with a stern face, just before she left, to make sure he knew he didn’t need to push himself any. He had no reason to really hurry. 

Nothing he did would make the year go any faster. Even if they found the answer the next day, they still had to wait until they could bring him back. Not quite a year, actually, but not too far off from it—long enough to feel like a long time. Long enough for him to feel like the distance between him and Vegeta was as wide as a valley. Walking from between each point was a journey he wanted to take faster than he was being forced to make it. They had become so used to the inconsequential nature of wishing away their problems, and they still were doing just that. 

It just never felt so heavy. Maybe it did, just not to him. 

He wandered the halls after he showered, feeling fresher physically, but still muddy. In his head he felt rolled around in a thick blanket of fog and it cleared only briefly, for short periods. Nothing really made him stop tossing around the same thoughts over and over. They tumbled with him quietly until he found himself standing in the middle of the walkway; in front of a door that was familiar to him for reasons that made him cringe visibly. 

Several days had passed since he’d last been through this door and he knew what was behind it. She had him there to keep him in good condition until they could restore him. Behind this door, she had him in a sealed glass box. Basically, a refrigerator. Vegeta, in a...refrigerator. Just temporarily. He needed to be taken care of, for the best chance of being cured. 

I should not have walked this way. I don’t remember walking this way. 

He reached a hand out to the door handle.

“Kakarot, walk away.” 

He jumped a bit, dropping his hand and looking around. His heart clapped against his rib cage, but then settled down after his brain wires connected enough to recognize the voice wasn’t coming from the outside. 

“Do not go in that room. Just leave.” 

The voice wasn’t real. It wasn’t Vegeta, not really. But, it was Vegeta enough that he...listened to it. He moved back and turned from the door, taking large steps away from it—widening the distance quickly, until the door was out of his sight entirely. Walking through that door was a terrible idea, and he knew it. His impulsive behavior made him do things, but Vegeta was the thinker between them. He’d let Vegeta think for him. 

Even if it wasn’t really Vegeta. He would pretend it was for the time being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for delaying the update, I didn’t want to edit. Editing is lame. And that’s too many words. Thanks for reading, feel free to yell at me.


End file.
